Leagues From Home
by Unoriginality
Summary: Six years after leaving Outset Island, Link and Zelda still haven't found what they're looking for.


_Full fathom five thy father lies;_

_Of his bones are coral made;_

_Those are pearls that were his eyes;_

_Nothing of him that doth fade,_

_But doth suffer a sea-change_

_Into something rich and strange._

_Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:_

_Ding-dong._

_Hark! now I hear them - Ding-dong, bell._

_-William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I, scene ii_

The sea had changed him.

_She changes everyone,_ Tetra had said. _That's her way._ Link didn't disbelieve that, as he leaned over the edge of the ship. Sharks followed in their wake below, but Tetra's ship was too big to truly interest them. In the distance, Seahats floated idly, waiting for anyone to get close enough to attack.

"Zuko, any sight of land yet?" Tetra called up to her lookout.

"No, Miss Tetra!" the tiny man called back, still watching through his telescope.

Link glanced upwards at him, then looked back to the sea, listening to her waves splashing against the ship's sides. "Do you need me to change the wind direction, Zelda?" he asked Tetra.

Tetra cringed, giving him the hairy eyeball for the name, as she always did, but she otherwise let it pass. Link was a 'landlubber' originally, from an island that worshiped the ancient legends, and he was heir to the Hero of Time's legacy, it was only natural that he'd call her Zelda out of some deeply buried instinct once he'd found out who she was. "No, we'll stay on this heading for awhile," she said, waving him off. "Thanks anyway, Link."

He nodded, then went back to watching the sea. It was different, so high up, from riding around in the King of Red Lions. He missed his friend dearly. But then, he also missed his sister and grandmother, but the people of Hyrule, what was left of them, needed a homeland like they'd needed their princess and hero to come along when they did. So he'd set out with Tetra and her men to find a new home.

He was never all together sure what motivated Tetra to look for a new home, instead of going back to a life of piracy. Maybe it was some sense of duty to her family line. Or maybe the time spent as Princess Zelda had gotten to her, maybe seeing the rich land of Hyrule had changed her.

Buried beneath the sea had been their inheritance, a rich land ready to support life again, where the oceans above only supported death for those who tried to tame it. Tetra and her men had survived, but like so many others, they'd paid a cost for it.

"Rupee for your thoughts, Link," Tetra said, coming up behind him and resting her elbow on his shoulder.

He smiled at her. "I was just wondering, why you were doing this. Don't you love the sea?"

She blinked. "Sure I do. But we're running out of riches to rob. Besides, I'm a princess now, right? Time to have some class." She grinned. "And anyways, there's gotta be land out there as rich as Hyrule was. Did you see that place? This ocean is death for anyone who lives on it, that's why our people live on isolated little islands. Time we got better."

Link smiled. "So it's purely selfish?" he teased.

She smacked the back of his head, nearly knocking his hat off into the ocean below. "Bite your tongue." She folded her arms on the railing beside him, watching out over the sea. When she spoke again, it was with a lowered voice. "My grandfather wanted a future for us. He wanted us to have a new land, hope. You did what you had to do because of the legacy you inherited, now I'm doing what I have to do because of mine. The king wanted us to have hope, but Link, we have to _be_ the hope of our people before we can have it."

He looked at her in surprise. "Well said, Princess," he told her, smiling.

She snorted, entirely unladylike. "Don't let it fool you. I'm still a pirate at heart. But anyway, that's why you're along. You and me, we're the hope the king saw in the future. Gannondorf took away everything that should've been ours. If it hadn't been for him, I would've grown up in a palace, and you probably would've grown up a normal kid. I'm not intending on letting that bastard win."

He was quiet, letting that all sink in. "How old are you?" he asked after a few minutes.

Tetra looked up at him. "Hm? Eighteen, same as you. But don't you know you're not supposed to ask a lady that question?"

He laughed. "Lady? You? Since when?" Eighteen. It'd been six years they were looking for land, with nothing in sight yet. But they'd find something eventually, he knew it. They'd returned to the islands that marked where Hyrule once stood several times to regroup and get more supplies, so that had slowed them down. It was just a matter of time.

"Since I became a princess," she retorted. "If you're going to call me by that dumb name, then I may as well get treated like a lady."

"Lady my ass," he said. "And I'm the hero that saved your dumb butt."

"Hmph. And what does that say about you, Mister Hero?"

He flashed her an ornery grin. "I don't know what it says about me, but it says you're awful damn lucky to have me."

She bumped her hip against his playfully. "Who's the lucky one here?" she demanded. "I'm letting you live on my ship for no cost. I oughta make you Niko's slave to be here."

"But we all know how intolerable he'd be if you did that." Link laughed as she swatted him, then impulsively leaned in and kissed her.

She drew back, blinking, while several of her men cheered. "It's about time," Nudge called over.

Tetra shot him a withering look. "Back to work, you," she hissed, then looked back at Link. "You'd better have a good reason for that."

He smiled, he hoped disarmingly, before Tetra sent him to work in the decks below. "You looked cute," he said.

Her ears colored red. She opened her mouth to retort, when Zuko's voice cut in. "Land ho!"

They blinked at each other, then raced to the bow of the ship, staring out at the stretch of land slowly coming into view over the horizon. "Link, we did it!" she said, grabbing him in a hug.

He picked her up, whirling her around, then set her back down. "New Hyrule!"

They'd all grown up out there on the sea, especially him, from the second he first set foot on this ship back at Outset Island. Now, he could say, he was finally home.


End file.
